


Echoes in an Empty Place

by opalmatrix



Category: Inheritance Trilogy - N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Goddesses, Gods, Prisoner of War, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zhakkarn and Kurue seek a moment's peace in the aftermath of the fall of the Maroland,</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes in an Empty Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/gifts).



> Written for **[ambyr](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr)** for Kaleidoscope 2011. Prompt: "I'd like to get a closer look at some of the female gods and how they relate to each other ... something that looks at how the Enefadeh both resisted and collaborated with their captors. Gen? Femslash? You decide." Beta by **[lawless523](http://lawless523.livejournal.com/)** , **[paxpinnae](http://paxpinnae.dreamwidth.org/)** , and **[smillaraaq](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Smillaraaq)**

At last, at last, at last, there were no more orders to carry out, and Zhakkarn found herself wandering in one of the dead spaces that had been left over from Sky's beautiful but impractical architecture. This one ended in a series of little chambers, one after the other. It was quiet here, in this small space, lit only by the glow of the daystone walls. Zhakkarn sat on the floor, and when that wasn't enough, she stretched out on her back, one arm crooked over her eyes. It was a physical arm, part of a corporeal body: a body that felt a weariness that at one time would have been simply inconceivable.

_Stop. There is no point to this. What is - simply is._

Time passed. Perhaps she slept. She became aware, at last, of someone calling her name. She would know that voice anywhere, although now it was produced by vocal cords of flesh and blood and gristle, inside a body that could be broken and tormented - and had been, many times. "I am here, Kurue."

Her sister appeared in the doorway of the small space. Kurue was back in her preferred form, but stunted, smaller than usual. She did not gleam like precious metals but was all too plainly made of nothing but mortal flesh. Her wings were draggled and ruffled like those of a bird that had been caught in a storm. _Meat. That's all we are now._

Kurue's clever eyes took in the room. If Zhakkarn had wished to make the effort, she would have known exactly where in Sky they were, but Kurue simply _knew_. "Why here, Zhakka?"

"Why not?"

Kurue sank down on the floor beside her, drew up her knees, and rested her head on them. Her arms fell limply by her sides, hands resting half-curled on the hard stone. "I suppose we will hear them call, wherever we might go."

"True." Zhakkarn rested one large hand on her sister's. "How is our father?"

"Recovering. But he has no wish to do so. It is slow work."

"He will do it, even so."

"And why? To spend eternities locked in a single form? Like _this?_ " And Kurue freed her hand from Zhakkarn's to strike her own thigh with one fist. The sound of the blow was loud in the small room, echoing off the bare walls.

Zhakkarn winced. Rolling onto one side, she reached out and trapped Kurue's much smaller fist in her own. "Don't do that. I have already seen you suffer far too much pain."

"It is nothing to what _he_ has suffered," whispered Kurue. "How could he have done something so reckless? How could he not have anticipated what it would do to mortal flesh?"

"It is his nature. And it was his choice. But the hundreds of thousands of mortal beings he took with him into the burning earth had no choice."

Kurue was trembling. Zhakkarn, wrapped up in her own memories, did not immediately realize that it was rage that moved her until she snatched her hand from Zhakkarn's grasp once again.

" _How can you care,_ Zhakka? Mortals - fragile, defective, pathetic. Every one of them was born dying! And for _you_ to worry about them. This was a _war!_ "

"Was it?

"How can you say that! They were fighting - they had sent armies."

"Where was the valor of the warrior, Kurue? Where was the skill of the strategist? Was there heroic striving, sword against sword? Did comrade save comrade in the face of death?"

Zhakkarn rolled to her feet in one smooth motion and loomed over her sister. The taste of blood and bile was in her mouth. "Is it war when the farmer diverts a stream to flood a rabbit warren that spoils his field, drowning all that cannot escape the rising waters, down to the blind kittens fresh from their mothers' wombs? Is it war when a log colonized by ants is tossed into a ranging bonfire, and those that are not burnt instantly to cinders are steamed inside their own small armored bodies? _That_ was not war. It meant nothing good to me. It gave me no strength."

Kurue looked up, her mouth a hard line. "I will not mourn for them!"

"Then will you mourn for all the things that they knew that you did not? Surely some of those hundreds of thousands had knowledge that you had not yet gained."

"Mortal minds!"

"Am I wrong? Some part of you also died that day, Kurue. And you are dying a little more right now by refusing to let that knowledge come to you."

Kurue did not answer. Zhakkarn turned so that she would not have to face that willfully blind gaze, but as she stepped toward the doorway, a hand grasped her ankle. "Zhakka - don't stay angry with me. Please. There is so little of me left ... ."

"What would you have me do, then?"

"I don't want to argue with you. All we have is each other."

"And Sieh. And Nahadoth."

"Sieh is with Nahadoth now, but _they_ never let him stay by our father's side for long. The things that they have been doing to our sibling ...!"

"Sieh is strong. We must be also."

"I can't be strong all the time, Zhakka. Not any longer."

Zhakkarn sighed and sank back down beside her. "Come here, little sister."

She wrapped her arms around Kurue, and Kurue rested her head on Zhakkarn's shoulder. Her wings were trembling, and Zhakkarn stroked them gently, smoothing the feathers into place. Kurue sighed as Zhakkarn lay back on the cold stone, pulling her sister with her, making a warm place in the cold emptiness. Their legs twined together, and Kurue pressed her lips to Zhakkarn's throat, tasting her sister's skin. "That's good," whispered Zhakkarn, rocking Kurue's body against her own. "That's perfect."

It was not, of course. Once they could have interspersed their very substances, twisted their souls together like the strands of a cable, mixed their essences and stoked each other's joy until they were a single pulsating cloud of silver-grey. For a moment, Zhakkarn could picture centuries, millennia, eons of going without what had once been commonplace, and she wanted to howl like all the winds of the open sea.

"Zhakka ... ?" whispered Kurue, her mouth against the place where neck joined shoulder, her breath warm and sweet against Zhakkarn's skin.

"Hush, Kurue - it's nothing" said Zhakkarn, and silenced her sister's lips with her own.

 


End file.
